Pages

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Military to test hypersonic jet that could zip across the U.S. in less than 1 hour

Technology as old as the universe, and off the shelf, as was the horse and buggy. Horse and buggy was high tech in its own time. But only for people on Earth. Earth was back then, and as it is now, constantly visited by space faring beings in magical ships for as long as earth existed. Humans are getting a glimmer of what space flight is and it is all the rage now; how far mankind has come, WOW. While magical ships buzz all around us, unseen, ignored, and completely off most people's radar. A baby only hears and is fascinated by the noise of a rattle, it doesn't see or comprehend what is in the rest of the house or the world outside of the house.

A superfast jet that could fly from L.A. to
New York City in less than an hour may be one step closer to reality after a key
test this week.

The X-51A WaveRider, an unmanned aircraft
that could reach speeds up to Mach 6 will be launched from the wing of a B-52
bomber high above the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The WaveRider is expected to zip up into
the atmosphere and fly at hypersonic speeds—3,600 mph—for 300 seconds, before
breaking up into the ocean.

If successful, if would be the longest
jaunt for the test aircraft. The newspaper noted that the development of
WaveRider could lead to progress on a passenger jet that could theoretically
travel across the U.S. in 46 minutes.

"Attaining sustained hypersonic flight is
like going from propeller-driven aircraft to jet aircraft," Robert A. Mercier,
deputy for technology in the high speed systems division at the Air Force
Research Laboratory in Ohio told the L.A. Times.

But beyond passenger flights, achieving
hypersonic speeds could also lead to the development of the next generation of
missiles, space vehicles and military aircraft, the Times points out.

The WaveRider program had an issue in June of 2011 when the test vehicle in a
similar test to the one planned for Tuesday failed to reach full power.

The Pentagon said it spent about $2 billion
on technology and engineering around hypersonic flight over the last decade, the
Times reports. This program is estimated to cost $140 million, according to
Globalsecurity.org, a military policy research website.